Vishal Gondal has undoubtedly been a celebrated personality in the gaming industry of India. Being the founder of ‘Indiagames’, one of the most noted gaming companies India had seen, he created a name for himself as a polished veteran in the industry. He departed from the Indian gaming scene in 2012 after Disney acquired Indiagames for $100 million. Now, he is planning to make a comeback and contribute to the country’s gaming industry.
AnimationXpress reached out to Vishal Gondal in an attempt to get an idea of the plans and vision he has on his comeback.
Post Indiagames, he has been working towards his wearable, fitness brand, ‘Goqii’ and now intends on coming back into the gaming scenario. “I can see the inflection point in India as far as mobile, smartphone, data and everything is concerned but I felt it was the right time to start looking at investing in this space because there are many young start-ups and companies who need what I call ‘smart money’, because so far industrialists have paid the money who have never played a game (literally) in their lives.”
Although the main focus for the entrepreneur this time will not be at just publishing or developing games, but also to provide ‘mentorship and advice’, which seems fair, as the country’s gaming industry is surging forward and the new and young start-ups could find the guidance of a veteran really beneficial.
It will definitely be exciting as well as challenging for Gondal as the industry and the ecosystem in India has evolved over the period. He states, “Smartphone penetration was very low during my time at Indiagames and feature phones were dominating. Whereas, today the android penetration is huge and more and more people are coming on data plans, so clearly it’s a very different landscape.” He further adds, “Previously, the people playing games were mostly the first 100 million odd people who were all English-speaking and understood international content but now, there are people in small town and villages who have smartphones and high speed data connections.”
Although, Gondal did not seem to be very content about the quality of games that is being produced in the country, he said the games continue to be ‘mediocre’ in quality and people are buying movie licences and just re-skining the games which worked earlier but now, given the easy availability of the best games from around the globe, consumers have turned to be really advanced in the choice of content.
He further explained his views saying, “It is about the quality and not just about being an Indian game or a foreign game. For example, Clash of Clans is made in Finland, but people care about the quality of the games and not where it is made as consumer taste is very advanced and so are their expectations. People still think that just by having a Bollywood or a movie name and giving a mediocre game experience will get you downloads. Yes. Somebody may download but do they actually play the game?!”
Thus, to take things into perspective, everyone who can run whatsapp on their phone can more or less download and play games but they still opt for foreign games because of the quality experience and not the name. Given the smartphone penetration is on an absolute surge in the country, it would be the best time for Indian gaming companies to create IPs which can compete with the quality of experience provided by many foreign games.
Gondal informed that he intends on tapping every aspect related to gaming industry and not restrict it to just publishing or developing games. From VR, AR to other technologies and even eSports, he plans to cover it all. He informed that he is already in talks with people and organisations from the industry, but has not decided yet on where or who to start with.
He is currently presiding as an advisor over the Mountain Dew’s eSports event launched in the country named ‘Dew Arena’ which aims to engage 30,000+ participants throughout the event. It would be interesting to see how it works out for Gondal as he has quite a name in the industry and young start-ups can use the funding as well as the guidance from an experienced personnel from the industry.
